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aesoteric writes "The explosion of blogging, tweeting and other online diversions has reached into US jury boxes, in many cases raising serious questions about juror impartiality and the ability of judges to control their courtrooms. A study by Reuters Legal found that since 1999, at least 90 verdicts have been the subject of challenges because of alleged Internet-related juror misconduct — and that more than half of the cases occurred in the last two years. Courts were fighting back, with some judges now confiscating all phones and computers from jurors when they enter the courtroom."

By being part of a jury pool, you are basically imprisoned during the jury time. Do anything beyond sneezing or don't show up and you get contempt of court and a fine or jail (judge discretion). It is not optional. Anyone see a problem with that?

Then maybe we might think more about going to war with everyone if it wasn't predominately poor minorities serving.

Well, MAYBE.

How many US Senators have "Served" In the military? Congressmen as well? Presidential Candidates? You'll find quite a few (though not all) had spent SOME time in the Military, though often never in any sense of real danger. Or at least, that's what Hollywood, Conspiracy theories, and pop culture in general has led me to believe.

That whole idea could backfire because the ones in power could feel as though the law is on their side, and that they wouldn't need to actually justify the wars they wage

The U.S. combat troops are disproportionately not minority. I don't have the links currently, but the idea that the military was predominately poor minorities was thoroughly debunked several years ago. Minorities are under-represented in actual combat troops.

I'd be all for it as long as this ideal society either includes compulsory female military service as well or revokes female suffrage. Service guarantees citizenship, after all. None of this "all people are created equal but some are more equal than others" crap I'm getting sick of in modern society.

Who says that I want to have the privilege of being tried by peers?If you went from home to home, asking people face-to-face what they prefer, I'd bet that most would easily give up that 'privilege' to avoid the inconvenience of jury duty.

We manage to ship most of our children off to public schools, I think we could manage to extend it to local military organizations at age 19. The thing that really peeves me about the draft is the "male" filter. Get rid of that, and then it's not that big of an issue.

No it is NOT called a draft. A draft is put into place in order to get more people into the armed forces when required. What the parent poster is talking about is conscription and there are a few European countries that still use it. It usually works by mandating that once you turn 18 you must serve x years in a branch of the military. I think this would be a GOOD thing but I imagine it would never get through congress.

Conscript armies tend to be hugely understaffed and under-budgeted things, simply because they are so big. Israel can afford one because it has little population growth, a small population overall and a lot of cash.Russia or the US don't fit that bill.

Actually, I believe the militia idea is better. It works for the Swiss, it worked for the Germans while they weren't trying to overrun anyone, it worked great for Finland, it even worked for the United States until Washington got it into his head that he neede

it even worked for the United States until Washington got it into his head that he needed a regular army to be a proper respectable general.

Washington needed a regular army in order to have an army. Broke colonies couldn't pay for their militias much longer.

And it's important to note that Washington abhorred the idea of a standing army... the army was disbanded after the Revolutionary war. The first military action of the new republic, the put-down of the Whiskey Rebellion, was done with an all-volunte

Unless you're sequestered (very unusual because of the expense), you aren't "imprisoned", all you're asked to do is not talk about the trial nor gather any information about the matters being disputed. Why is this a problem? Is it so impossible to tell people that you can't talk about it?

Of course you may be found in contempt of court if you don't show up without notification. Trials are expensive and the schedules are always packed. The trial may have to be delayed because you can't be troubled to show up. And you feel that this is wrong?

I've served on multiple juries, some trials lasting multiples of weeks. In that time all of my friends accepted that I wouldn't talk about the trial, I didn't run home and look up the particulars of the case (can't say that I wouldn't have loved to, I just didn't) and didn't feel imprisoned. I guess something's wrong with me...

A citizen of the United States has 3 civic duties:1. Vote as wisely as you can.2. Serve on juries when called upon to do so.3. Contribute funds to pay for the government i.e. taxes.

Some of them are a pain in the butt - nobody likes paying taxes, for instance. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't be willing to do the job that Americans fought and died to have. I've done it, and it's really not all that difficult. You go in in the morning, hang out with a group of strangers you're eventually going to know pretty well, listen carefully to evidence presented to you, and decide whether the state has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant has committed the crime he is charged with committing. It may take a while, but it's important to do and do well, for the benefit of the defendant, victim, and society. Because it someday might be your future on the line, and you'd want your jury to do the same.

I, and a lot of people I know, would experience (and cause) extraordinary inconvenience if required to serve on a jury. My father-in-law is a salesman without salary; if he's empaneled, his family will do without. My brother-in-law is a lawyer; if he's impaneled, his clients will not be represented. My wife is a doctor; if she's empaneled, all her patients will have their appointments canceled with minimal to no notice.

I don't like paying taxes, but at least I can predict them. I could tolerate a fixed period of essentially unpaid service to the state if I could know start and end dates six months ahead.

Assuming she had been given decent notice, though, and taking your example, should she cancel the entire week's appointments?

Yes. Take vacation, whatever shee needs to do in order to be prepared to do her civic duty. There are other doctors out there -- and if not (rural area, etc), then she should be able to get an excusal.

She's a prime example, I believe, of people who will find an excuse to avoid their civic duty. I understand that the fact that she's a doctor mitigates it a bit. I understand that i

Intriguingly, according to the jury instructions my wife was handed at her recent jury duty, "you will be instructed to consider the evidence in light of your own experience. You are not allowed, however, to relate any special or expert knowledge or opinion that you have regarding business, technical or professional matters to your fellow jurors."

So the doctor and lawyer would find themselves responsible for a mistrial, possibly a contempt of court citation, for explaining anything to the other members of the jury.

Instead of picking random people who aren't smart enough to evade duty - forcing them a day (or a few) off work et cetera - why not instead EMPLOY people who are actually responsable, and intelligent enough in order to properly take important decisions? You could call them, uh... judges... instead.

If you were going to pay people anyway, why not just pay the regular people who are randomly selected? And by pay I mean actual pay, as in what they would have been getting anyway, perhaps with a little extra.

That's not how it works. You are not supposed to do any research yourself. You are supposed to decide based on the research done by the prosecution/defense, and not look up stuff on wikipedia or other websites.

The point is that if they have a question they ask the judge and not a possibly incorrect definition or other false, misleading, or legally disallowed information on the web. All information a juror gets about a case must come from the judge or the courtroom.

There seems to be two general categories of Internet communications when it comes to trials. One is making comments about the process or trial. This I think has always happened to some extent, but was never made public (i.e. telling your spouse about your jury service). The addition of the Internet has made this more of a problem, because in the end, it is supposed to be the juror's decision about guilt, not him/her and the readers of his/her blog.

dlevitan wrote:
your only piece of information is from the prosecutor and defense lawyer,

The prosecutor and defense lawyers speech can also be restricted in most states. The purpose is specifically to limit the juries knowledge to what the judiciary considers relevant. This has been considered constitutional since 1895. Prior to that a jury was often addressed as "the Nation." "Will the Nation please rise" was intoned when the judge entered the courtroom. The tension between the judge, who represent

In some cases, judges have withheld important, material information from the jury in order to get the verdict they wanted.

The two cases I'm thinking of, one involved some ridiculous charges brought by everyone's favorite criminal UFO cult against one of its critics. The other was a medical marijuana case where the judge concealed from the jury that it was a medical marijuana case, and that the doctor on trial had fully complied with state law. In b

While this would suck if it was your $20,000 in legal fees (average for a four day trial in the US) that just went up in smoke because of a twitter post, is one case in every other state per year a crisis?

This seems like a tempest in a teapot, something for judges to deal with, and worry about, but San Francisco, California Seats hundreds of juries a year. One medium sized city. this doesn't seem to be an issue beyond being a new problem for judges. A comparative study about which Jury instructions seem to

The courts and attorneys are very selective about who they choose for a jury. They want the least intelligent and most impressionable people they can find. They don't want people who can think and reason well. They want people who will follow orders and do as they are told. And if they happen to know what a jury is for, they will not be selected.

The people who fit the profile are also likely to be stupid enough to have an online profile and to openly share information about themselves and what they are

90 verdicts does not seem to be a high number considering the number of cases in the US. How many verdicts were overturned due to juror misconduct that did not involve the internet? This is yet another sensationalist story.

In Australia, when the jurors enter the jury room at the beginning of the day, all phones, computers or anything which could be used to communicate with the outside world is taken and locked away. At the end of the day the jurors get them back.

This is standard procedure, to reduce the chance of evidence contamination. Jurors are also required not to perform their own investigations, or to talk about the case with anyone outside of the jury room, both during the trial and after the trial concludes. Breaking these rules can lead to prosecution. I'm always amazed at the stories of jurors in the US talking about trials, why they made their decisions, etc. Here in Australia that would get you locked up.

Then again, jury selection is also very different in Australia. Neither the defence nor prosecution can ask any questions of the potential jurors. Each time I've been up for jury duty (I've served once) the process was as follows (this was for the Supreme Court of NSW - other courts may be somewhat different):

1. Potential jurors asked to be excused. Those who were excused were informed that they would be re-summonsed within about 6 weeks. When you're selected for jury duty in Australia, eventually you will have to allow yourself to be part of the jury pool. You're also informed at this point that by turning up for selection, you've avoided a fine of between $1100-2200. Forms regarding payment options are filled out at this time as well.

2. Those who were not excused were told that they are exempt from any future jury summonses for at least 1 year.

3. Those who were not excused were told about the case. At that point anyone who already knew particulars about the case, knew any of the defendant, witnesses, or felt they hadany other reason that they could not be impartial about the case were excused.

4. One at a time, jurors were randomly selected from the remaining pool. Each of the defence and prosecution could "challenge" (reject) any juror, but only by looking at them (i.e. there are no questions whatsoever). The defence and prosecution could each challenge a maximum of 5 jurors.

5. Once 12 jurors went unchallenged, the rest of the jury pool was dismissed.

6. The 12 jurors were sworn in and informed of their responsibilities, then taken to the jury room.

7. Once the trial concluded the jury was dismissed, and were told how long they are exempt from jury summonses (at least 3 years, but can be longer at the judge's discretion, depending on length of trial, etc).

I own several apartment buildings. If something happens, I have to take care of it ASAP.

That thing rings during a trial you will have plenty of time cooling your heels in jail (without a phone) for contempt of court.

You do NOT use a phone when on Jury duty.

The last time I went to jury duty, a judge spoke saying that a ring of the phone messed the questioning of a witness. The lawyer had spent quite a while getting the person in the right position to get a case-making statement to be made when a juror's phone went off, giving the witness 45 seconds to prepare their answer.

Nor do you run out of the courtroom to deal with a major water leak from apartment B3. The reality is, someone in a crucial position like this needs to be excused from jury duty, or the court needs to find a way for them to address the matter (it's not easy, so excuse them). People in many self-owned and operated businesses do get excused from jury duty easily.

I was notified twice I had to appear for jury selection. Both tymes I was hoping I'd be picked to serve on a jury involving possession or distribution of drugs or another victimless crime so I could use jury nu

Either get someone else to be on call or ask the judge to be dismissed from jury duty because of the undue burden it would put on you and your business. I personally have no idea if asking to be dismissed will work, but it's incredibly stupid to expect court to stop for you while you take a phone call about a tenant complaining about the wailing cat upstairs. In the US, and just about every other country, the court's business is more important than yours. If you can't find someone to help you run you business, you do not belong in that court room.

...In the US, and just about every other country, the court's business is more important than yours...

Depends on your point of view. Almost everybody thinks (most of the time), that their business is more important than someone else's. The difference here is the judge has a great deal of power, and little oversight on their (mis)use of it, and you don't.

"I own several apartment buildings. If something happens, I have to take care of it ASAP."

I'm sure slumlording is a very important vocation but that excuse won't fly. I've served on juries, the very last time in fact a doctor was told he had to appear before a judge on the very day I was there for selection in that trial. He had apparently passed along several notes to the court asking to delay, befuddle, and stay his own involvement in the selection process and the court had enough and informed him he would be personally present. After making several excuses verbally the judge looked down at hi

And clearly as an enterprising business man, you have somebody else that can handle emergencies when you are unavailable? You know... when you take vacations, fly on airplanes, or are otherwise out of cell phone range... It almost makes me wonder how anything every got done in the days before instant communication to anybody you want.

You know what's really cool. Being stuck in jail for weeks on end because they can't put a jury together because our society is full if irresponsible, narcissistic bastards who think jury duty is something someone else should do because of the minor inconvenience it represents. Just hope you don't get to find out about that first-hand.

I'm sorry but if you take a jury trial over a judge? You're an idiot. My mom served on one a few years back, and came in white faced afterward and said "NEVER take a jury trial, ever!" Why? Because they finally had to declare a mistrial after she hung it up for nearly two weeks straight at 11-1 to convict. here is the story-

The guy was on trial for supposedly burning down his business. There was NO motive as he didn't even have enough insurance to cover the place and was therefor gonna have to file bankrupt

I probably sound like an elitist prick. What I really mean is that a jury trial can be a bit of a roll of the dice with respect to composition. I suppose a panel of judges is to a degree as well, but I think it's much less so.

It is, and the problem has been dealt with already. It's an issue of jurors not following the orders they've been given. Jurors are ordered not to investigate the case or speak with anybody about it while the case is ongoing. After deliberation you can speak freely about your thoughts, but up until then you're ordered to avoid coming into contact with any information related to the case where possible, and report any possible exposure to the bailiff, so that the judge and attorneys are aware of anything which could compromise the verdict later on.

The bigger problem is that the jury pool ends up being people that are less educated or retired and don't necessarily get shown a lot of respect by the politicians that require them to be there. The court staff does treat jurros well typically, but it's hard to feel appreciated when you're being asked to lose so much money to serve.

The bigger problem is that the jury pool ends up being people that are less educated or retired and don't necessarily get shown a lot of respect by the politicians that require them to be there.

Citation?

I was just on a jury about a year ago and the average age was somewhere around 30-35, I think there was one person close to 60, maybe two in their 50's, and three of us in our 20's.

I was actually kind of surprised at how "average joe" everyone was, while still being a pretty diverse group.

There was only one retiree in the group, and the vast majority was college educated. This same distribution was roughly true of the people prior to jury selection, too (you know, where they gather everyone up before sending off to various court rooms for selection). There weren't a lot of old or apparently uneducated people.

Your blanket statement simply does not hold up with my personal experience at all, and since you cite no references, I call bullshit.

My wife was called to JD this week. On Monday, as the initial screening began, the first group to be dismissed was felons. Per her report, about 10% of the people present got up and left at that. Your jury pool reflects the jurisdiction from which it is called.

Having a family member who obtained a felony years before 20, and "paid their debt" by 25; I can assure you that there is no statute of limitations on punishing felons.

It must be put on every job application. It bars you from entering certain jobs where the application must be deemed trustworthy; like X-ray technician, McDonald's food worker, etc. It's the new underclass.

This is a control issue, and they recognize that its much more difficult to control someone who has access to infinite amounts of information at their fingertips. I know, it sucks for the judges and lawyers that they can't exercise their type A personalities and run the whole thing as a racket anymore, but they seriously need to get over it. You can mod me as a troll if you want to, but the simple fact is, that law and legal procedures is merely another avenue where access is going to be a game changer. The

The bigger problem is that the jury pool ends up being people that are less educated or retired and don't necessarily get shown a lot of respect by the politicians that require them to be there. The court staff does treat jurros well typically, but it's hard to feel appreciated when you're being asked to lose so much money to serve.

The proper solution here is for legislation that requires employers to treat jury duty as paid time off *separate* to normal vacation time.

You are also losing tons of money by living in a country that wants income taxes. If you are unwilling to pay your dues to your country...please leave.

Also, judges for the most part are understanding of hardship exemptions. In your average court in your average week, there are far more potential jurors than will be needed...if I trial is expected to be long , they usually ask if it would pose an undue hardship on you to be in court for 3 weeks or whatever (such as having an employer who won't compensate

Yes, they were compensated the same way we are now -- knowing that if you are indicted, you have the right to trial by jury. Jurors in the US have never been compensated well fiscally (excepting bribery:)) -- it's civic duty to serve.

You are compensated for your time as a juror by the fact that you live in a more-or-less orderly society where you (in principle) have rights that the government cannot take away.

If your presence at work is critical, you can get a deferral (I've done this in NY & NJ). In my experience, this is done via a letter from your employer (or self, if self-employed) to the court requesting it. Eventually you'll need to serve or face a contempt-of-court charge.

This allows companies and individuals to not face undue hardship from jury duty.

When I was called in NJ, I was once even given the opportunity to select when I would be available, and I scheduled projects/coverage at work around

Just because your life is worse than his doesn't make his problem less real. The reality is, many people live from paycheck to paycheck, and asking them to take an 80% pay cut for two weeks or a month is undue hardship for them. I'm tremendously grateful that I'm not in your shoes, but I also think you might consider extending some empathy for people who are also in an unfortunate situation. There's always someone worse off than you, just as there's (almost) always someone more wealthy.

In a similar vein, it's not like things have really changed. I bet just as many people talked about the case with friends and family, heard things they weren't supposed to, and had just as many pre-trial prejudices before the connected age as they do now. It's just that the new methods of communication leave a trail that public, near permanent, and easily searchable.

So, in my opinion, the courts can either just throw out the random cases where the jurors are too stupid to hide their misconduct, or they can use this as a learning experience to find new ways to reduce that misconduct. I'm hoping that it's both, leaning towards the latter, but the US judicial system isn't always the most agile.

In a similar vein, it's not like things have really changed. I bet just as many people talked about the case with friends and family, heard things they weren't supposed to, and had just as many pre-trial prejudices before the connected age as they do now. It's just that the new methods of communication leave a trail that public, near permanent, and easily searchable.

I disagree; I think it's also a scale issue. Now instead of talking about the case with their husband or wife and maybe a couple friends, they

You used to have to go to a library to do your research on weird case-law...now if curiosity gets the better of you, it is right at your fingertips. Also, if you are on a newsworthy case (most are not) it is much easier to just not read the newspaper or watch the evening news for a week than it is to avoid seeing things online where it can pop up in completely unrelated ares.

It's just a question of money. If you let jurors go home at the end of the day, then there's no way to control what they see or do. The solution is to keep jurors confined to hotel rooms for the full duration of the trial, or if that's too expensive in a lawsuit-addicted society like the US, to build juror barracks for this purpose.

The Jury, as far as I know, isn't supposed to investigate. The investigation has already been done by the prosecution and defense. The Jury is supposed to sit, listen, and make a decision based on what they are given.

I think it might even be illegal for a Juror to do an independent investigation.

You are correct, jurors are forbidden from doing their own investigation. I did not mean to imply that they were allowed to, my point was that there is a strong incentive for them to do so, regardless of the rules.

When making an important decision, it is natural to desire as much information as possible in order to make the best possible decision. If jurors question what they have heard in the courtroom, or have doubts about particular aspects, then they will have an incentive to research the issue on their own.

I would be intrigued to learn if any studies had been done about such cases that show whether juries who broke them rules in this fashion arrive at "better" or worse verdicts (where it is possible to determine what a "better" verdict is).

Depends on the courtroom. In most states, it is at the judge's discretion whether to allow the juror to be an active participant in the process or merely a passive observer. There are many judges that welcome juror questioning, but others do not. It's usually in the form of a written question passed to the bailiff, who them passes it to the judge, who then determines whether or not to allow the juror to ask the question, though as I understand it, in some (rare) courtrooms, the judges do allow spontaneou

Depends on the judge, but mostly no. I was a juror on case where that did happen. This was a civil case BTW. The rules were each juror could only ask one question per witness. The questions had to be written, then the judge looked them over. He would throw out any he didn't like. He then showed the remaining questions to both sides, and if either objected to a question, it was thrown out. Any remaining questions the judge asked the witness, then both sides had a chance to cross-examine.

It WOULD be hard to not look up stuff when you went home in the evening, on a multi-day trial.

It's really to hear the people saying "Just turn off your damn phone!" and say "Right on!" but a lot of these juror misconduct cases have been about a juror looking things up online, and then using that information when deliberating in the jury room later.

I'm so used to looking up ANYTHING I'm wondering about... but tour rules are that you're not supposed to base your decision on anything you didn't see or hear in

There can be a lot of downtime in a trial. I was recently a juror in a murder trial, and out of the 6 hours or so allotted on each day scheduling for hearings, maybe 3-4 hours total were spent in the juror box listening to testimony. The rest of the time we were locked in the deliberation room while the judge and attorneys discussed stuff.

We were not allowed to discuss any aspect of the case with each other until after closing arguments, so it was pretty common for people to pull out the phones while in

In our case we were given hardcopy instructions prior to beginning deliberations that included the definitions of all legal terms that were applicable, including one for burden of proof.

Basically, we were instructed to form our opinions on three things:

1. Our life experiences and education up to the point where we were sworn in as jurors and told to avoid doing outside research.
2. The evidence presented in the courtroom.
3. The definitions and instructions provided to us.

Interestingly, we did have a case where a juror ignored the judge's admonition against outside research - she printed out a definition of "Burden of Proof" she found online and brought it into the deliberations. It was confiscated by the bailiff before anyone else could look at it and she was dismissed. We spent most of the rest of that day playing on our cellphones waiting for an alternate juror to come in.

Interestingly, we did have a case where a juror ignored the judge's admonition against outside research - she printed out a definition of "Burden of Proof" she found online and brought it into the deliberations. It was confiscated by the bailiff before anyone else could look at it and she was dismissed. We spent most of the rest of that day playing on our cellphones waiting for an alternate juror to come in.>

How can this be? Only our best and brightest peers get to sit in that stupid box for way too long listening to a bunch of nonsense about something they could give to shits about, then make a decision that's fair. All the peers you WOULD want to sit there (if you're the one in court) will get removed by your courtroom adversary, or themselves anyway. What's left are those that could not come up with a good excuse to get out of the duty, and have nothing but time to waste pretending to do a public service that would be better served from a pool of paid peers. Unless you have a shitload of money, then you get a good lawyer and he'll fight for some "good jurors" for you at least. Good justice is served to those that can afford it. If not, you're fucked.AND they have to keep the jurors off the Internet. Face it, it's broken, or borken.

Have you ever actually served on a jury? I hear statements like yours often when this topic comes up, and it's just wrong. I have only my own experience to base my opinion on, but in everything I've been involved in the jurors were intelligent, educated people who wanted to see that justice was served.